It’s only happened once in the history of the NBA, but the man making the history books says it should have happened differently.
Reading the records right now, Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry is the only player to win the Most Valuable Player award on a unanimous vote. That happened back in the 2015-16 season.
There’s no doubt Steph deserved the award – and the unanimous vote – after leading his team to an amazing 73-9 regular season record that year. As for the Finals, that was the year LeBron James led his Cleveland Cavaliers to one of the biggest comeback wins in the history of the Finals tournament.
Yet in a recent interview, Curry said that he should not be the only player to win the MVP on a unanimous vote. Steph says our man Shaq should have been the first to achieve the honor!
Here’s Steph’s thoughts on the matter: “I fully understand that I probably shouldn’t have been the first one, I think. The year Shaq won, he was a clear unanimous pick, even though it didn’t work out that way.”
If you remember your Shaq-history, O’Neal was virtually unstoppable -as were the Lakers – in the 2000-2001 season. For the regular season, O’Neal lead the league in scoring with 29.7 points per game and field-goal percentage with 57.4%. As if that wasn’t enough, the Lakers legend put up 13.6 rebounds and 3.0 blocks per game. For the regular season, the Lakers finished 67-15 and Shaq registered a PER (Player Efficiency Rating) of 30.6.
So… what happened? Why didn’t the big man get the unanimous MVP vote? Well, he did, except for one lone reporter. CNN reporter Fred Hickman denied the Hall of Famer the opportunity of a lifetime by writing in the name Allen Iverson. Hickman said at the time the 76ers icon was more valuable “to his team” than Shaq was to the Lakers. Iverson ended up seventh in the overall MVP voting. A lot of people said Hickman’s reasoning was deeply flawed.
For you fantasy NBA fans, we’re thinking about a Steph-Shaq combination. No doubt Shaq would attract a ton of attention in the paint, allowing Steph to rain in the threes from everywhere. Meanwhile, Shaq would have free reign near the rim thanks to Curry’s gravity. What a sight that would be!